From fundamental concepts to branding process to case studies, Alina Wheeler’s Designing Brand Identity is a quick yet comprehensive guide on building a brand. This is a required reading for my class on Brand Identity Design, which only started two weeks ago, and I already plowed through it. The Fourth Edition has many up-to-date information such as new best practices. Without a doubt, this is a book to keep as a reference for designers and Marissa Mayer should have read it as well.

Coady’s brief guide explains color-blindness and provides helpful tips on making design accessible to people with color vision deficiency. Re-reading it for a visual-storytelling project for my graduate seminar class.

Frank Chimero’s The Shape of Design is a delightful page-turner even on the iPhone. His response to design thoughtful and the connection with jazz improvisation is insightful. The reference on Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue alone is intriguing. Definitely worth a few rereads. Here’s an excellent excerpt on framework and the work of Miles Davis:

A framework for improvisation allows us to get into the process of making things more easily. Perhaps the most famous example of an imposed framework was created by jazz musician Miles Davis during the recording of his album, Kind of Blue. Davis, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb, Paul Chambers, John Coltrane, and Cannonball Adderley packed into a CBS recording studio in New York in March of 1959 without any songs pre-written. Jazz musicians routinely tolerated this sort of ambiguity, because they made their living by winging it. But it’s unlikely that any of them predicted that jazz would be reinvented that day.

The predominant style of jazz at the time, called Bebop, was frenetic and lively, but had a tendency to overstuff songs with notes. The abundance sometimes hindered the musicians’ melodic expression by occupying all the space in the song. Bebop has been described as musical gymnastics, because the style’s flourishes and showmanship forced musicians to negotiate complex structures. In spite of the artistry necessary to maneuver in the Bebop style, it can become too large a load to carry. It’s hard to swing if there’s no room to move. Davis wanted to let the air back into the songs, to give the musicians more space to play. They were asked to improvise with simple scales and modes rather than Bebop’s chord progressions.

The recording session began with Davis handing each of the seven men a small slip of paper where he had written down a description of their part. None of them had seen any of the songs before coming to the studio, but with the guidance of the slips of paper, they recorded the whole day, and booked a second day a few weeks later. After two sessions, the album was finished.

Kind of Blue is unequivocally a masterpiece, a cornerstone to jazz music created in just a few short hours by altering the structure of the performance. The musicians accepted the contributions of one another, and ventured out into a new frontier, using their intuitions as their guides. Davis amassed a stellar group of musicians, and with a loose framework of limitations to focus them but plenty of space for exploration, he knew they would wander with skill and play beyond themselves.

Davis’ example is a bit misleading though, if only for its efficiency. Improvisation is a messy ordeal, wasteful in its output, and it should be accepted as such. The key is to generate many ideas, lay them out, and try to recognize their potential. Don’t be concerned if you improvise and don’t use most of the ideas. There’s always a significant amount of waste when mining for gold. (Unless you’re Miles Davis, apparently.)

After hearing me sing “Con Chim Non” to Dan so many times, Dao picked up the lyrics and sang to grandpa. Notice how clear he enunciates the words. He has a really good ear for nuances. I think he would be good at learning different languages. Over the weekend, he saw the police stopped someone, he told his mom, “Mẹ, police phạt-“ing” người ta.”

Dan, on the other hand, is still babbling quite a bit. He speaks a lot, but very hard to understand. One time he said, “water fountain” and I could not understood him until he pointed me to the water fountain. He hasn’t been able to sing “Con Chim Non” yet, but he got the melody down. When he said “đi (go)”, he would sing the melody, “đi đi đi… đi đì đi… đí đí đi…” Yesterday, he pushed the elevator button and stated to sing, “bâm bâm bâm… bâm bầm bâm… bấm bấm bâm.” It’s quite funny how he turns every word into a tune.

A required reading for my graduate course on Brand Identity Design, Marty Neumeier’s The Brand Gap sets the record straight. A brand is not a logo, a corporate identity nor a product. A brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is. The book is such a pleasure to read thanks to Neumeier’s concise writing, clear illustrations as well as large Helvetica.

Butterick’s Practical Typography is insightful as well as opinionated. You’ll learn the difference between straight and curly quotes as well as to stay away from bad fonts (in his opinion). Obviously if you use his fonts (Equity and Concourse), you can’t go wrong. The book is a great read and I love the way Butterick uses the web as a publishing platform. The book is set in the beautiful Equity and Concourse. Unfortunately the site is not made for mobile. Reading the book on the iPhone is a bit of a pain because the text is tiny and you have to move the body text around a bit to fit nicely on the small screen. Taking the responsive design approach would have solved these issues.

Over the weekend, I came across Thùy Dương’s Chút Tình Xa Vắng while spending time at my in-law’s house. Thanks to my son Đán who pushed all of the CDs off the shelf and led me to discover the album, but I didn’t listen to it until we spent a few days in Atlantic City. Sunday night when the kids went to bed with their mom and grandma, I strolled down the boardwalk from casino to casino looking for a cheap Pai Gow table to play. Started from the Tropicana where we stayed, I walked all the way to the Taj Mahal in the middle of the night and listened to Chút Tình Xa Vắng.

After having to deal with the kids all day long, nothing beat walking down the beautiful night with Thùy Dương to unwind. Her rendition of “Đà Lạt Trong Nỗi Nhớ Muộn Màng” (Tú Nguyễn) was filled with nostalgia as the cool wind breezed by. “Lá Thư” a beloved ballad from Đoàn Chuẩn and Từ Linh had been covered many times, but never with the melancholy that Thùy Dương brought to it. Her interpretation of Trịnh Công Sơn’s “Hoa Vàng Mấy Độ,” “Lặng Lẽ Nơi Này” and “Như Một Lời Chia Tay” were all outstanding. Her voice was so cold, yet so hopeful.

Thanh Tùng’s “Giọt Nắng Bên Thềm” was not one of my personal favorites, especially when Thanh Lam butchered it, but Thùy Dương’s version just fucking cut it. She hardly sang in the upper register and yet she hit it dead on: “Bài hát tìm trong nỗi nhớ từng ngày bình yên.” You can just feel it.

When I excitedly telling my wife about an old gem I discovered in her parents’ place, she responded, “Honey, I bought that CD years ago.” As always, she’s way ahead of me.

As Tết Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Festival) is approaching, mooncakes are on displayed everywhere in Asian stores. As always, Kim Phung’s fresh mooncake is still the best. My wife and I shared its specialty (egg yoke, ham, mixed nuts and melon) and sipped some tea. As I am getting older and older, this is the only reason to love Tết Trung Thu. If you have a chance to visit Eden Center in the next few weeks, check out Kim Phung Bakery. It’s kind of pricey ($8 a pop), but definitely worth it.

Message from the Provost:

Today, I am informing the George Washington University community that Doug Guthrie is no longer serving as the Dean of the School of Business. Fundamental differences about financial and operational performance were significant enough to warrant a change in leadership.

Damn!

After taking the boys home from daycare, gave them a bath, Dao asked me, “Where is mommy? Why is she not home yet?” I joked, “Mommy got captured by the police.” He started bawling and requested, “Daddy, can you go get her? I want her to be free.” I felt horrible so I said, “I was just kidding, baby. Mommy will be home soon. She’s running a bit late to buy us some food.” He was fine with that.

At bed time, he asked me to go to sleep with him. He wanted both me and his mom to sleep with him. He didn’t fall asleep so I started to. As I was snoring, he kicked me out. He told me, “Daddy, can you go to sleep with em? I just want mommy to sleep with me.” I felt jilted. Can’t compete with mama’s boy.